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Looks like Harley Quinn is really going all the way
with this New York Mayor stuff! Frankly, I wish she really was running this
year. We’ve got such a sleazy bunch of mooks on the docket, when you line ‘em
up it looks like the Evolution of Man. Let’s fantasize of a world where the
worst thing we have to worry about from our elected officials is getting
walloped with an oversized mallet, in my review of Harley Quinn #29, right here!

Explain
It!

There’s a buzzword coursing the pages of online
journalism and armchair critique: “optics.” Everything is judged on the merits
of its optics—meaning the way it is perceived, how it is “read” by the public
and/or audience, if such a distinction is necessary. This fact has been true
since the Kennedy/Nixon debates of 1959, if not earlier. We are a base people
that judge things on the way they look rather than the way they are. Since the
advent of photography, and especially television, our elected officials have
skewed younger and more virile than the oafish gout-sufferers of the 19th
century. With some notable exceptions, of course. But it is largely true that
an ability to perform well in full view of the public will go farther than
one’s actual policy or political acumen.

Which is what makes the candidacy of Harley Quinn for
Mayor of New York City so interesting. On one hand, she’s a ghoulishly
white-skinned firebrand with her colored hair in pigtails. On the other hand,
she dresses with her boobs and butt hanging out a lot. So I could really see
New Yorkers likening to Harley, especially her shrill voice that would likely
remind more than one mamaluke of his dear ol’ mudder. She’s doing so well, in
fact, that incumbent Mayor and known Harley Quinn-hater DePerto hires the
Scarecrow to send Harley fleeing from the campaign trail. This leads to some
interesting scenes of Professor Crane traveling into New York for his
rendezvous, which is something you don’t get a lot. I appreciated it, and the
idea that these Arkham Asylum crazies.

Seems its time for Harley Quinn to debate the other
people running for office, and having been prepped by Poison Ivy (who seems to
have become her campaign manager) and plus shtupped by her old boyfriend Mason
from the wax museum. Poison Ivy sees this, as well, but doesn’t seem too upset
by it. And the debate is too important, anyway! Harley is holding her own, but
when Scarecrow releases his fear gas, Harley Quinn snaps out and starts
attacking DePerto. She has all kinds of scary visions involving Joker,
including that he steals Poison Ivy, so I’m sure that will be a thing. At the
end, Harley Quinn is subdued by Ivy and her pals, but surely at the cost of her
optics!

This was a pretty enjoyable issue that, once again,
involved one complete story. The frequent art changes make sense in the
narrative, and the fact that Tom Derenick is on psychedelic duty makes me
forgive the return of the Harley Quinn
Hallucination Scene that used all too common. Really, there’s enough here for
me to be interested in: Poison Ivy’s thoughts on Harley and Marco, the
election, dealing with Jonathan Crane being in town. But there’s not so much
that I feel overwhelmed and don’t know what thread to follow. I could get used
to this.

Bits and
Pieces:

A nice issue that creates enough drama to keep me interested. What else do you want in a comic book? How about Tom Derenick drawing psychedelic tormentors and villains? Okay yes, I want that. I want Tom Derenick drawing psychedelic tormentors and villains.